*Insert DBZ's Cell theme*
Two tall men were making their way down the tall mountains in the northern regions of the Land of Fire. Both wore a long, black cloak with a pattern of repeated red clouds decorating it. The cloak's high collar obscured their faces, as well as the ornamental white cloth attached to their conical sun hats.
They jumped down into a plain surface in between cliffs. They were closer, but it was also getting late.
"It's such a shame that Orochimaru beat you to it." Said one of them. His face had features that resembled those of a shark, mainly his gills and sharp fangs. Under his hat, he wore a hitai-ate, though the symbol of Kirigakure was slashed.
"He failed." Replied the other man. His skin was pale, while his long, dark hair reached a length that was not visible due to his cloak. He also wore a hitai-ate, though his own bore the symbol of Konoha, which had also been slashed. "He could not even defeat the old Sarutobi."
"Well, I heard they still suffered a few casualties and mostly damage to infrastructure." He smirked while glancing at his companion.
His incitation was ignored, and the pale man simply looked up to the sky. "Nothing about my plan has changed."
A drop of water fell on his nose. Soon after it, more began to fall from the clouds. Rain was about to begin.
"We should go into that cave." The man that looked like a shark pointed at a nearby opening that resembled a cave. "We don't want you to catch something before you do whatever you're planning."
The pale man looked at the cave and simply began walking towards it. His companion followed. He was not content with the lack of response, but at that point he was used to it.
Once they arrived at its entrance, they noticed that a few boulders had collapsed and partially blocked the way in. The taller man, who resembled a shark, made half of the inu and tatsu seals, before the water from the rain gathered around him and formed four balls. Then, they were launched at the boulders, and the impact reduced them to dust.
Then, the two calmly walked into the cave, ready to wait for the rain to stop.
Once inside, the pale man simply never stopped walking. He noticed that the cave was quite deep, and he followed the natural path into the depths of it. Not even bats were inside, it was seemingly desolate.
The man that resembled a shark grabbed his massive sword, Samehada, as he suddenly had the same feeling as his companion. Something was off. A presence, other than them, was somewhere in there.
Eventually, the pale man noticed a small bean laying on the ground. He crawled down and grabbed it. It seemed like a regular bean, one yet to fully mature due to its green color.
After a few seconds, he tossed it away before continuing his way.
The bean bounced on the wall and then on one of the boulders right next to them. The last hit launched the bean deeper into the cave, where darkness restricted vision even more.
A deep exhalation echoed through the walls of the cave and reached the ears of the two men. Then, something resembling the sound of static followed.
The pale man turned around, the iris of his eyes with a burning scarlet red color.
"Out!"
Both of their bodies flickered before the cave exploded and everything above it collapsed. Pieces of boulders shot outside the cave, but they were easily dodged by the cloaked men. The intense rain quickly soaked their clothes, but their hats kept their faces somewhat dry.
However, nothing could have really prepared them for what came from the cave. A single explosion cleared all the boulders that had blocked the way once again. A thick cloud of smoke and dust blocked the sight, but both men could sense the intimidating presence of whatever had caused the explosions.
Heavy footsteps were followed by a green crest that emerged from the cloud. Then, his face, and then the rest of his body. Surprisingly, the creature was even taller than the shark-like man. Almost two heads taller. Its body was completely naked, and its skin seemed more like the chitin exoskeleton of an insect. His body had a color palette of green and orange, with black spots spread all throughout.
"Ah… Finally free." He stretched his limbs and breathed in the fresh air. "I might be back in my first form, but…"
He opened his hand, revealing a set of only three fingers, and aimed his palm at the man that resembled a shark.
"Seems like I'm still the most powerful by far…" Then, simply aimed one finger, almost as if he had changed his opinion. A small sphere of green energy formed just over his black nail, before shooting a powerful beam that pierced right through Kisame's heart.
The cloaked man collapsed on the ground, while the intense hemorrhages quickly became evident.
The pale man's posture tensed as he pulled both of his arms inside his cloak. There, he prepared a very specific jutsu.
"Yes, that's it!" Cheered the older Namekian with his deep voice.
He was just outside the hut while training his son. The day had gone by quite normally, up until that point, when the first attempt to actually create the Dragon Balls was made.
The kid's Ki was already exceptional, and that was intentional by Piccolo, who made sure his son was as powerful as his own body allowed. But even then, neither him nor the other Namekians inside his head expected such quick progress.
Akira was extending his small hands towards the grass. His hairless head was sweating a little due to the considerable effort he was doing to concentrate his magic in materializing the base for the dragon. Small yellow light particles formed on the palms of his hands.
Piccolo watched in awe as the small statue of the dragon took shape. It was like a serpent, similar to Shenglong. However, it also seemed to have a completely different texture to it.
The little Namekian began to breathe quite heavily, for which his father decided to transfer him some extra energy. He extended his bigger hand and transferred a little bit of his Ki to his son. If the statue could be finished then, it would save them some time that could be important later on.
With his energy refilled, Akira managed to finish the small statue. Finally, he created a small bowl of glass to cover it. He fell to the ground from the exhaustion of creating it. Then, he exchanged glances with his father.
The statue then revealed that the new dragon was a feathered serpent. It was an interesting choice that none of the known Namekians had taken.
"You did it…" Piccolo was quite impressed, with even a little of disbelief. "You did it!"
He picked up his son and raised him upwards. The kid was caught off-guard and a little scared, but as soon as he noticed the happiness on his father's face, he began to smile and laugh.
That laugh had been the first time Akira used his voice.
"And I thought you were a prodigy, eh junior." Said the old Kami, who smiled quite serenely at the warm image of Piccolo and his son.
"One's children are as powerful as oneself, after all." Added Nail.
However, their cheerful moment was interrupted as Piccolo felt something unusual just behind them. He carefully and slowly put the little Namekian back on the ground. Akira was a little confused, but his smile still remained strong.
The tall Namekian turned around, expecting a stranger. However, what he met instead was something akin to a hole in reality. He had to crawl down to see what was in it.
His eyes widened in shock as he recognized the face of Bulma through the small hole. The circle was actually a portal that somehow communicated them with their old world.
"Piccolo!" She yelled from the other side. As she stood up from her desk, she dropped her cup of coffee, while several gasps and voices echoed in her surroundings.
What the Namekian could identify as the voice of Chi-Chi reached his sensitive ears.
"Is Gohan there?! Is he okay?! Bring him back, Bulma!"
Piccolo's eyebrow ticked a little. "He's fine, but… What's going on, what is this?"
Bulma shook her head before sitting back down. The feat of the machine actually working was already shocking enough, but the fact they found Piccolo and Gohan so quickly was just not on her budget at all.
"This is an interdimensional portal." Explained the blue-haired woman while typing furiously on the keyboard of her computer. For a few seconds, the portal became unstable and emitted a sound resembling static. "The plan was to get you back through it but it seems this is the biggest I can get it to be."
"Just when we were starting to get used to this place." Piccolo turned to look at his son, who was a little confused at the situation. Then, he turned back to Bulma and let out a sigh of relief.
The fact she found them was still good news in spite of everything that happened in the past couple of months.
"But wait." He realized a little detail. If he was right, then Cell should have destroyed the planet. "How are you alive? What happened to Cell?"
Bulma continued to type furiously before carelessly replying. "He disappeared alongside you."
Those words hit Piccolo like a massive anvil on his head. His breathing stopped completely for a solid three seconds, while he felt drops of cold sweat falling down his head and antennae.
"He what?"
"Wait, he is not there with you, is he?" The mature woman stopped typing for a moment.
Piccolo's shocked eyes indicated something other than just insecurity at the possibility. However, the Namekian simply didn't know.
She let herself fall against the chair. "I can't seem to get it to grow. This is the best I can do."
Bulma grabbed her cup of coffee and threw it away. For the first time, she had found her ceiling, her limit. Throughout her entire life, with and without her father, she had managed to break through the horizons of science. She had invented the most innovative machines of her time, but now she had reached a limit she could simply not surpass. She was unable to achieve full teleportation in between dimensions.
Once again, Chi-Chi's voice was so loud that Piccolo could hear it through the portal. Despite how small it was and that only Bulma was visible through it, he figured from the whispers and Chi-Chi that the others were also there.
"Do you think…" this time, Gohan's mother was audibly sobbing, "you can fit some capsules through the portal?"
The blue-haired woman wiped the tears of frustration that were starting to flood her eyes. "Actually, yeah, I think so. Why?"
Chi-Chi broke down a little, so someone else continued speaking.
"Well, we kinda saw this coming, or, Uranai Baba did. So Master Roshi told us to prepare some gifts in case they couldn't come back." Krillin's voice explained.
"Though, my idea was more to get them there through the Dragon Balls." The old man added.
Bulma widened her eyes. "You thought so little of me?!"
"No, no." Krillin replied nervously. "It was just a good plan that could work in both scenarios."
Then, someone unexpected spoke.
"It's such a shame…" The man sounded quite disappointed, though had not yet fallen completely to sadness. "I had returned for a day to welcome them back."
"Goku…" It was impossible for Piccolo not to recognize his old rival's voice, even if faint and soft through an interdimensional portal.
"Chi-Chi and I will go last." Finally said the Saiyan.
After a brief silence, Bulma walked away, still with some tears in her eyes.
The first of the team to come was Yamcha, who had returned to having long hair. However, what surprised the Namekian was that he was already looking considerably older. His face had some wrinkles, while his hair had some gray spots.
"Woah, Piccolo, you look exactly the same!" He scratched the back of his head while handing over a couple of capsules. "I guess I envy those Namekian genes! Anyways. I couldn't think of much, but I thought a signed baseball bat and my old sword were good enough gifts."
"Hurry up, Yamcha, the portal can collapse at any given moment!"
The man of the many scars was scared by Bulma's warning, and so sped up his words. "Well, I hope that place is not that bad and I hope my gifts are okay. See ya!"
As the man jumped away, two more came in his place. Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu looked just the same, though some wrinkles had taken over the former's face.
"Well, we struggled a little, to be honest." Said Chiaotzu, while Tien handed over two capsules. "I think, since it's all we do anyways, the best we can give you is uniforms of our martial arts school and a book with our techniques! I also added my recipe book, in case you ever needed it."
Piccolo nodded as he put their capsules on the floor right next to the ones from Yamcha. He pushed his son back as the little Akira tried to reach them with his small hands. He was also a little embarrassed and preferred not to show them his new son.
"Our apologies if the gift is not good enough. We hope to see you both again, one day."
The duo walked away, and in their place came the familiar face of Krillin. However, he was no longer bald. His gray hair had grown fully, as well as a thick mustache. Alongside him, Master Roshi also squeezed his way into the small image of the portal. Nothing had changed about him other than a different pair of sunglasses.
"Hey, Piccolo!" Waved Krillin, before softly elbowing the old master. "Um, where's Gohan?"
"Well, he's not here at the moment. He went away earlier in the morning." Explained Piccolo while scratching one of his cheeks.
"Huh?!" Yelled Chi-Chi.
Krillin looked very scared for his life before continuing to speak. "W-well. Make sure to give him this, then."
Roshi handed over a few capsules. "We decided to gift you some uniforms from the Kame school, as well as a turtle shell especially for Gohan. We figured you wouldn't be fond of the idea, Piccolo, but I also got you a staff perfect for your size. A replica of mine!"
Despite how proud the old man felt, Piccolo cringed a little. He was indeed not very fond of the idea.
"Karin and Yajirobe also sent a bunch of senzu beans. Certainly will come in handy, I figure." Continued Krillin.
Neither of them could say anything else as Chi-Chi moved them away with two powerful kicks to their heads. Then, the woman, also considerably older than the last time they met, looked furiously into the portal.
"What do you mean Gohan isn't here?!"
"He went to visit some city with a friend he made." Piccolo explained, not wanting to make the woman even angrier. "He's fine, I can sense him here and… no one here is stronger than us two."
"That's some good news!" Goku, who looked just the same as when they fought Cell, stepped into the conversation. His signature smile was drawn on his face, but something about it felt a little melancholic. "I'm sure you've been taking good care of him, Piccolo."
The Namekian nodded. Something felt off about saying goodbye to his rival. The boy who killed his father. The boy who defeated him. And the boy who went on to not only save Earth, but also the universe.
The Saiyan handed over a few more capsules. "Vegeta gave me his gifts so… There you go."
Chi-Chi, still crying, managed to calm herself down enough to speak more clearly. "My father and I gave him some money and I gave him biology books so he can continue studying to become a scholar!"
"I decided to give him my old power pole. I also found an old friend of Gohan's, so please make sure to get him out of the capsule quickly! I don't know if he can get hurt inside there… It's Icarus, his dragon. I think his capsule is of a different color"
"Oh, Dad and I also gifted him some weapons. It was his idea." Chi-Chi was not in agreement with it, but she figured it could be necessary at some point. "Alongside the pole, you have Ox Satan's legendary axe and the Bansho fan."
"And, well, Vegeta gifted him a Saiyan armor. Sadly he left nothing for you, though, Piccolo. I'm sorry for that." He then took another capsule from one of his pockets, after seemingly remembering it was there. "Oh, I did get something for you, though. It's Kami's old robes."
The Namekian received the capsule and stared at it for a while. Then, he looked back at Goku and nodded. That was his way of showing gratitude and respect to him.
"These are a lot of gifts. I'm sure Gohan is as thankful as I am."
"Piccolo." Began Chi-Chi, while holding back her sorrow. "I've never liked you much, but please. Take care of my Gohan."
Once again, the tall Namekian nodded. "I'll do my best."
The portal then began to collapse. Bulma rushed back to her computer and began typing furiously once again. However, the situation soon escaped her control.
"No!" Were the last words she could say before it closed completely.
Then, as the silence set in, Piccolo took a couple of minutes to process what had just happened. He first looked at the pile of capsules he had been given through the portal. They were the only proof that the portal was real and not a hallucination.
He grabbed the only purple capsule among the bunch and turned to look at Akira.
"I think you're gonna like this one."
Piccolo clicked the small button on top of the small device, before throwing it away in front of them. From a small cloud of smoke, a familiar purple dragon emerged. He looked around with some confusion, before recognizing Piccolo and rushing towards him.
Icarus jumped on the unsuspecting Namekian and began licking his face repeatedly. Right next to them, Akira could not stop laughing at the endearing scene.